The Lowlife

Alexander Baron’s 1963 novel, The Lowlife, already had a history of being rediscovered before its inclusion in Faber Editions, an imprint which specialises in neglected classics, and John Williams estimation of him as a writer “among the finest, most underrated, of the postwar period” is one shared by many others, but anything that brings this novel to wider attention is to be applauded. London writers, native or not, have praised its capture of the city at a key moment, suspended between the post-war fifties and the approaching liberation of the sixties, but readers from further afield should not be put off: one need not be born to the ringing of the Bow bells to appreciate Baron’s sense of place.

The ’lowlife’ of the title is Harryboy Boas, a man who lives by betting, mainly on greyhounds, accepting the ups and downs which come with such an uncertain income. His sister, Debbie, and her husband, Gus, despair of Harryboy ever settling down, advising him to buy property he can rent out with his winnings:

“You may ask, why doesn’t Gus put up the capital to start me in a business? He has. Several times. Every time I gambled it away.”

The only other relationship he has is with a woman called Marcia who “charges twenty pounds for a short time.” Once married, she spent her time having affairs until she decided to make a business out of it. Unlike Harryboy, she has a plan to retire at forty, “buying houses and letting rooms”. Harry has no interest in romance:

“…I only feel relaxed with a whore. With the others, you never know what they are after. I am a free man.”

Her husband represents a world she has left behind, a place for the weak and inadequate, as is demonstrated when he meets Marcia in a restaurant and asks her to go back to him (“He was the kind who had been brought up to keep it civilized”). The Deaners – Vic, Evelyn and their son, Gregory – who move into the same building as Harry, are also from that world. It is Gregory who befriends a reluctant Harryboy whose natural instinct to avoid others is overridden by the child’s insistence, and perhaps also by sympathy for the absence of a loving mother – witnessing Gregory in her presence (being told to put all his toys away or they will begiven to the children’s hospital) he notices:

“His lips were clamped together, and his eyes had gone empty.”

Harryboy also makes the mistake of inviting Vic and Evelyn out to supper one night – “I may be economical here, you know, but up West I live.” This impression of wealth will later cause Harryboy problems, but rather than originating simply from a need to show off (as well as convince himself his lifestyle is a choice), there is also a sense he wants to treat others well. When Evelyn asks him about entertaining Gregory:

“I heard myself saying, ‘I don’t mind.’”

Similarly, when he meets Vic at the library, recognising “a hunger in his eyes for someone to talk to”-

“I spoke to discourage him. I didn’t want him falling on my neck.”

Yet moments later, he is repeating the invitation – “Words come out of my mouth. Where do they come from?” Harryboy is naturally kind but works hard to restrain those feelings. He describes his parents as “full of real charity, which means goodness and a cheerful heart.” But perhaps the most significant event in his past is the French woman, Nicole, he left behind in Paris just as war was declared:

“What could I have done? Did I know she was pregnant when I left her?”

Nicole, like Harryboy is Jewish, and every so often he thinks about his child and what might have happened. It is this that lies at the heart of his relationship with Gregory – in fact at one point he will claim to be his father. It is also in abandoning Nicole that he feels himself to be a lowlife, deserving of no better than leaving his life to chance, as he did with hers.

The Lowlife well deserves it perpetual rediscovery. It is not only London that feels present and alive but the characters too, and the relationship between Harryboy and Gregory in particular is finely drawn. Readers can only be rewarded each time it is returned to print.